A Different World
by EstrellaCorazon
Summary: For Beshflorin's Maiko Week over on Deviant Art. Modern AU. Zuko, a struggling writer, finds inspiration in the most random places. And Mai has a soft spot for cats. Rated T for language and skin.


**Maiko Week 2009  
**

**A Different World**

Zuko sat at his typewriter, clacking away on the keys. Mai was lying on the dark red couch that was by the window, her right arm hanging down with her fingers brushing against the wood floor. Bright sunlight was streaming in and warming her pale skin. Through the thin glass, she could hear the sweet chirping of birds, which was almost drowned out by the sounds of the typewriter. She closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her long, silky black hair. She had meant to comb it, but it was Saturday--those sort of things didn't matter on Saturday.

Suddenly, the clacking came to a stop, and the chirping became louder. Mai opened one eye to peek at her lover. He sat there, staring at the paper, his lips pressed together in frustration. A second later, he grabbed the paper, ripped it out of the typewriter and crumpled it up. He then threw it across the room towards the waste bin, but it hit the rim and bounced back towards him.

He tugged at his dark brown hair in frustration. Mai could tell he was trying to stifle a yell.

"Just let it out, Zuko." she told him, opening up the other eye.

"AUGH!" he yelled out. "What is wrong with me!?"

"What's wrong?" Mai asked, sitting up on the couch.

Zuko rubbed his forehead and his temples, trying to massage away a headache of frustration.

"Nothing's coming out right…absolutely nothing…for the past week everything I try to write or start writing just ends up as crap!" he explained, putting another clean sheet of paper into the typewriter. Her immediately started clacking out a line, and then stopped abruptly. He stared off to the side contemplatively.

Mai stood up and stretched, then made her way to him. She was wearing a black sports bra and red sleep shorts with little black skulls printed all over them--they had been a present from Zuko for her last birthday. Her long hair reached the small of her back.

She put her arms around his shoulders, hugging him close to her. He was wearing a baggy, long sleeved green shirt and baggy jeans--his writing clothes.

"It's about that argument you had with Azula last week, huh?" she quietly whispered to him.

Zuko took his fingers off the keyboard and rested his hands on Mai's arms. They were both silent for a moment.

"The worst thing about it," Zuko said as quietly as Mai, "Is that we had to argue on our mother's birthday."

"I really wish that you wouldn't let her get to you." Mai said as she stood up and started to give Zuko a massage. He closed his eyes and allowed his head to fall back. A pleased smile formed on his lips. "She knows what buttons to push and she pushes them. She _wants_ you to get angry, Zuko."

As she continued to rub with her right hand, she brought the left one up and gently rested it over Zuko's left eye, where his scar was. She gently rubbed it, feeling the rough skin that had healed over the wound. Zuko's father had given it to him years ago, to "teach the boy a lesson." Afterwards Zuko went to live with his Uncle Iroh. It was bad enough that Ursa had died of cancer when Zuko was a kid. Why did he have to end up with such an asshole of a dad?

Zuko opened his eyes, and Mai pulled her hand away. She stopped rubbing.

"So how is it you're able to ignore her, Mai?" he asked.

"I ignore a lot of things, in case you hadn't noticed." she said with a smirk. "It takes years of practice and training. To be honest Zuko, I think it's too late for you." she joked.

Zuko raised his head and frowned in frustration.

"I didn't say stop." he ordered Mai.

She smacked him on the side of the head, but in a playful manner.

"Ow!" he said, but with a smile.

Mai walked back over to the couch and plopped down, slouching into the seat like a lazy beer drinking football fanatic. She gave Zuko a pouty look. He turned from the typewriter to look at her.

"You're so cute when you do that." he said wistfully.

Mai sat up and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

"And you're sooo dweeby when you do that." she said, smiling.

Suddenly, the outside chirping of the birds became louder and more frequent, like they were disturbed.

Mai quickly turned around to see a small black cat in the middle of the yard. The birds had fluttered off. She saw that the cat was looking longingly at the birds as they flew away. It was fluffly cat, but it was feral. One of its ears, the left one, had a few rips in it, along with a small hole near the tip. They were the scars of battle.

Mai immediately headed for the kitchen. When she got there, she grabbed a small bowl and opened up one of the cabinets. She took out a small bag of cat food and opened it. She scooped some into the bowl, and then headed for the front door.

The cat was still there. Upon the opening of the door, it dashed into a bush.

Mai put the bowl down on the porch and then closed the door. She returned to the window, which gave her a perfect view of the bush that the cat was hiding in.

Zuko sat down on the couch beside her and decided to observe the cat, too.

"You know, it only keeps coming back because you keep feeding it." he said.

"Hm, that sounds like a certain moody writer I know." Mai said.

The cat cautiously stepped out of the bush and sniffed the air. It slowly made it's way to the porch, where it knew the bowl of food was. It was in the same spot that Mai always put the bowl. Once it saw that it's free meal was there, as always, it dashed to bowl and began to eat greedily.

"Poor little guy…" Mai said. "I haven't seen him for a few days."

Zuko let out sigh.

"So what are we naming him?" Zuko said, propping his elbow and couch and resting his head in his hand so that he could look at Mai.

"Huh?"

"You obviously love the little fuzz ball. What are we naming him?"

Mai looked back at the cat. She looked at his ripped up ear again.

"Zuko. Jr." she replied.

"What? Why?" Zuko said, taking another look at the cat. He was obviously annoyed by her choice.

"Just kidding." Mai said. "I don't know. What do you want to name him?"

Zuko shrugged his shoulders, then turned away from the window and fell into the couch. He glanced at the type writer with looks of longing and dread. He wanted to write, he wanted to finish something, but his creative juices just weren't flowing.

"Just take a break, Zuko." Mai said. "And try again later, maybe even tomorrow. When you sit at that type writer too long you get moody."

"So what if I want to get moody?" Zuko pouted, already in one of his trademark moods.

"I don't like dealing with your moodiness!" Mai shot back angrily.

Zuko's eyes widened in shock as he jumped back slightly, away from Mai. She had frightened him. Neither of them like to see the other one cranky. Zuko would go emo and Mai tended to get violent. The worst part of it was that their crankiness tended to feed off of each other. But that's love. You have to take the good with the bad. Suddenly, the phone began to ring.

"I'll get it." Mai said, standing up from the couch.

She walked back into the kitchen, where the phone was located.

Zuko got up from the couch, stretched up as far as he could towards the ceiling, and then made his way back to the type writer.

"Hello?" Mai's soft voice came from the kitchen. "Oh, hello, Katara."

Zuko rolled his eyes as he began to tap out new line on the type writer. Mai would be on the phone for a while.

Once more, the line did not come out quite right. He leaned on his elbows and stared at it. He didn't want to through away the paper. That would be wasteful.

He gave of a huff of frustration.

He just needed a couple of really good characters. He hated the fact that inspiration would strike at the most random moments, and then he'd be able to write off of that for months. Then, the inspiration would dissipate, and then he would get hit with a bad case of writer's block.

"Uh, huh…" Mai's voice came from the kitchen. "Yeah, that sounds fun…"

Zuko wondered what she was talking about with Katara. He clacked out a few more lines on his type writer, then read them over.

_Hm, well, it's getting better,_ he thought.

He heard the click of Mai hanging up the phone. She came back to the living room and leaned against the frame of the entranceway.

"That was Katara." she said. "She just invited us to go out to dinner with her and Aang tonight."

Zuko didn't look at her. He just kept typing away, still grumpy over the fact that his writing was not up to par.

"We're going, Zuko." she said. "To get you out of the house, and away from that typewriter."

"Alright, fine!" Zuko said, pushing himself away from the desk.

"Try to smile tonight." Mai said.

Zuko looked at her, and then forced a smile. Mai couldn't help but laugh at how fake it was, which then made Zuko give a genuine smile. She walked over to him, and leaned down to kiss him. He kissed her back, far more passionately, giving her some tongue.

"Alright then." Mai said, pulling away. "We're leaving at six tonight."

Zuko pressed his nose against hers for a moment, then he pulled away and turned back to the desk.

Mai sighed.

"Fine. Finish your exercise in futility." she said. "I'm going to take a shower."

She went down the hallway towards the bed room.

Zuko sighed as he watched her disappear. She was right. He needed to get away from the type writer.

On both sides of the type writer were two piles of paper, messily stored there for another day of "cleaning." He decided that today was a cleaning day.

Most of the papers were doodles and notes on new story ideas. A few of them sounded promising, but most of them just sounded stupid now that he was looking at them objectively.

As he debated over throwing out a scrap of paper covered with doodles from his friend Aang, a business card fell to the ground. Zuko leaned over to pick it up.

It read:

_Mike and Bryan _

_Graphic Design_

Zuko read over the contact information as he smiled over the odd sounding names. In the four corners of the card were samples of their work, tribal looking designs that Zuko assumed were meant to represent the four mystic elements, as one of them did look like a flame.

Zuko put his handful of papers back on the pile, and then propped the business card up against the type writer. And once more, he started typing away, begining the adventures of his two new characters.

A/N-For Beshflorin's Maiko Week over on Deviantart.

Mai's totally a cat person, I know it.


End file.
